


More than Alive

by maireeps, somethingmorecreative



Series: More Than Alive [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Horseback Riding, Horses, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Fluff, M/M, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, Survival, Texan Keith (Voltron), Weapons, Zombie Apocalypse, cowboy keith, musician lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maireeps/pseuds/maireeps, https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmorecreative/pseuds/somethingmorecreative
Summary: Keith and Lance band together, as the only two mildly sane people they’ve met so far and slowly create a strong bond that leaves all of their plans with loose ends as they try to survive and thrive together.





	1. more than alive

**Author's Note:**

> part i of this au with somethingmorecreative (rachel)! 
> 
> we'll be alternating posting with each part, so subscribe to this series to keep up! support us on tumblr too!

The music faded from his earbuds abruptly as his iPhone died. He had to commend it for lasting as long as it did from his tiny solar charger. Sighing, he took out his buds and stuffed the cords into his bomber jacket pocket. Without the low thump of the same downloaded playlist over and over as his companion, he was utterly alone.

Only months ago, it had been completely different. His world, the world, had changed with one bloodborne virus and suddenly he cared nothing about how his music major didn’t match the aeronautical classes he took or that his dorm’s RA Ashley didn’t get the hint that he wasn’t interested. New York was a city, and if his obscene obsession with splatter films in the summer of eighth grade taught him anything, it was cities were to be avoided in the zombie apocalypse.

Except the government didn’t call them zombies. A virus affecting people vulnerable to pre-and-post-mortem infections of the blood stream. If you got bit, you were hit. And there was a lot of biting going around.

So Lance shoved his valuables in the biggest pack he owned - his phone, chargers, skincare routine and whatever clothes could last him and slung his guitar case over his shoulder before getting the heck out of dodge. He was smart enough not to hit the mainland, not to even attempt the highways, and set straight for the coast. It was easy enough finding a ferry - a grouch of an old man named Grits who took him as far down the coast as he could on his tiny fishing boat. Unlike the hysteria of the cities, maybe Grits and him had found some solace in one another - as seemingly the only sane people through the whole ordeal.

Not that he hadn’t freaked out. Because he did.

When the news hit, he had called Hunk immediately. His best friend, all the way on the West Coast, said he was heading for Canada with his family. The government was issuing asylum to all citizens who could make it up north while they proceeded with evacuations across the country. Hunk sounded nervous, even though the West hadn’t been hit as hard yet. That was a month ago, an endless amount of days to not hear from your bestest buddy but it wasn’t exactly the time to blow up Hunk’s phone. The government hadn’t cut the cellular yet, and Hunk would call to let him know if he made it. He had nothing to worry about, because Hunk was easily the most reliable person he knew.

Lance promised to meet him in Canada.

He would make it eventually - either if he was evacuated or found a ride up to the northern territories, but he would make it. He’d never lie to Hunk.

Unfortunately, despite his determination, shit was going just a tiny bit haywire.

Disaster made humans go crazy. It was around the third time a group had tried to loot him for his pack that he realized it was less than likely he’d be hitching a ride up to the North with whoever passed by. It was around the fourth time running into a group that he solidified that notion, watching as some right Southern ‘gentlemen’ circled him on their four-wheelers and called him ‘pretty boy’ with malicious antagonizing grins. Luckily he had found a tiny thing of a handgun in the outskirts of the last town, and thanks to growing up with his rancher father, he was one hell of a straight shot. They rolled out of there faster than they had come, their measly leader with a bleeding hole in his foot. It put him down a bullet, sure, but fuck it had felt good.

He scuffed the toe of his Converse against the road. The six lanes of traffic were deserted, littered with scattered dead cars and debris. He approached the mid barrier, hoisting himself up and over the median onto the opposite lanes of Route 1. The crumpled road map in his pocket let him know he had just passed into Virginia maybe a few hours ago, leaving him well clear of most major cities. That had been his plan, but fuck if he hadn’t thought of another one to follow it.

Now he was without a vehicle, utterly alone on the East Coast, too exhausted and scared to try any of the junked cars nearby for fear of triggering a car alarm. The last thing he needed after walking so long was a horde of undead to come lumbering out of the woods on each side of the highway. He squinted ahead in the lingering evening, spying the bridge ahead along the river. Here the cars were heavier, collapsed on both sides in various positions like steeples. One stood out to him; a large semi truck without its truckload sitting taller than all of the cars around it. He broke into a light jog, crossing the bridge edges and weaving toward the semi.

It was tall enough to buffer out crawlers, with steps too high for immobile walkers and with all windows intact. Perfect.

He slowly clasped onto the door handle and heaved it open. No car alarm, and the seats were cushioned. Perfect.

Lance hoisted himself in without a second thought, tossing his bag into the passenger seat and shrugging out of his bomber jacket. He locked both doors swiftly, setting up his solar charger on the dash and fishing for his last sliced meats and cheese from his thermal pouch. To think he used to dream about eating lobster on the Eiffel Tower in something by Coco Chanel. He almost mourned that dead dream as he ate slowly, tilting forward to turn his eyes to the sky.

It was almost sad how beautiful the stars were. Still blinking brightly for far fewer to see. His mother used to point out the constellations on their ranch, and he thought of his family in Cuba. They had been so proud of him for being accepted into NYU, no matter his misdirection in terms of majors. His father had driven him to the airport at the crack of dawn, just the two of them on the pickup truck bench as the sun rose golden pink against the darkened sky. The government radio said the islands in the Atlantic were swarmed, swamped with undead and utterly inaccessible. There were rumors of the last strongholds of the islands being Havana and Matanzas, but that was weeks upon weeks ago, when there were still few enough names of the fallen to list.

Lance counted the stars of Orion, of Ursa Major and Minor, until tears wet his bottom eyelashes and he fell asleep.

* * *

He shot up in the front seat, railing his forehead against the low hanging sunshade and groaning immediately as he hunched over. It was morning, probably not even 9 o’clock with how light the sky seemed. Even during his days on the ranch before college, he had never been a morning person. The new age had changed that.

The soft rhythmic chop-chopping sound he had woke up to was slowly getting louder. He had long attuned his body to the miniscule sounds of unrest - because being able to click into action the second you heard something meant you were able to survive.

Lance shoved his phone and charger into his pack, hauling his guitar over a shoulder. He leaned forward, slowly and steadily, to check the driver side mirror. Nothing but the bridge stretched behind, with the trees lining the highway on the other side, and yet the beats were nearing his position. He stretched over to the passenger seat, hauling himself over his pack and creeping low under the window to check the passenger side mirror. A low profile would help him dodge out of any shit bandits way, but instead of any clinky four-wheeler or reassembled military-issue Jeep, there was just a sole figure.

The lone rider sat atop a huge horse. Slowly they approached, closer and closer in the mirror until the horse was passing by the semi truck’s passenger side. The large steed was black, huge and powerful with muscles working tirelessly under a sleek gorgeous coat. From the angle, Lance could see the supplies tied to the saddle, a bedroll, medium saddlebag and a jet Stetson hat matching the horse’s coat tied to the back saddle. The rider wore steel-toed boots and tight black pants, but the sun cast in the eyes too much to see the face of the rider.

The horse carried on, black tail flicking as it went past the semi truck, looking to weave around the abandoned cars onward.

Lance’s heart was in his throat. The first person he’d seen in a day or so - the first person who didn’t look insane. He was scrambling forward before he knew it, guitar over his shoulder and hands grabbing onto his pack as he kicked open the passenger side door and fell down to the step. It creaked lamely and loud, almost in annoyance as he leaned all of his body onto the step to close the door around him.

“Wait!” Lance called, bounding to the ground, his pack hitting his back hard. He was stiff from walking, stiff from sleeping upright and he almost lost his footing as he stepped down onto the highway. He steadied himself, arms raised and gaze snapping from his feet upward.

The rider had turned, horse prancing in pace and chuffing loudly. A diamond of white sat on the horse’s face, the only other color on the black steed’s body. He was fine with admiring the pretty pony until he looked to the rider.

The man was gorgeous, long wispy hair tied back to his nape and hanging in his handsome face. The pale expansion of his skin was dusted with patches of tan, forearms strong and sturdy under the plaid shirt rolled to his elbows. He had a split eyebrow, pierced ears and dark slit eyes that bore into Lance. If they had been at a gay bar downtown in the Upper East side, Lance would be all over the attractive cowboy.

It was then did he realize the sword strapped to the man’s back, the knife strapped to his thigh and semi-automatic with scope loosely tied around his chest. Lance wanted to weep, fall to his knees and give up because at least he’d die at the hands of some sexy stranger. But instead, the man did nothing - said nothing, just stare unreadable at Lance.

So he stepped closer, watching how the stranger’s eyes danced up and down his body. If they had been at that gay bar downtown, Lance would take it as an invitation to smile prettily at him and sit in his lap. Now he stood lamely in front of the man on the horse, with his heart in his throat, trying not to pose a threat.

“Uh, hey,” Lance raised a hand, “you might not want to go that way…”

The man said nothing again, but the prick of his eyebrow upward stirred Lance on.

“Three days walk - I mean, maybe a day’s ride, you’ll be going straight into D.C.,” Lance fished out his map from his bomber jacket, unfolding it, “I just passed through Winchester. People are saying D.C. is a dead zone - no copters have passed in days.” He gestured to Winchester on the map, attempting to hold it up against his chest for the man to see.

Slowly the man leaned forward, and Lance shuffled closer so he could point to the map, tracing his finger trip around the D.C.-Baltimore area to where he assumed they stood.

“Are you not from here?” Lance jerked his head behind them, “You came northeast, government is recommending northwest -”

“Fuck the government.” The man snorted, curling his lip,

Lance grinned, “I mean I hear you but I’ve seen it myself.”

He paused. He hadn’t been in D.C., but the piling of burning corpses left in a radius around the District of Columbia was a warning. The grey smoke had been visible for miles from the burning and he hadn’t dared go close.

“….I’d avoid it,” Lance folded up the map and tucked it back into his pocket. He looked up to the horse with a slanted smile, reaching to pat the muscles on the neck with a palm. “Wouldn’t want… Epona to get spooked, right?”   
  
The man’s eyebrows knotted together in amusement, smirking, “Her name’s Artax.”

“Neverending Story?” Lance grinned, “That’s a bit ominous. She’s beautiful though.”

Artax seemed to appreciate it, throwing her mane and stepping lightly back and forth. The stranger snorted, shaking his head, hair curling attractively against that sharp jaw, “She’s arrogant enough already, thinking all this riding is me spoiling her. She might just be pleased to get out of the Chihuahuan.”

Lance’s jaw nearly dropped, voice weak, “Texas? Shit, you really are a cowboy.” The stranger had been making amazing time if he had made it from Texas to Virginia on horseback. Artax picked up her pretty hooves again, ears going stock straight as she turned her head to the end of the bridge.

The stranger seemed to notice, reaching on to place his palm on the horse’s mane, “I’d tip my Stetson but it’s not really mine -”

He cut off, frowning as he followed Artax’s gaze behind Lance’s shoulder. He blinked, watching the dip of the man’s handsome face and his gaze harden.

“You any good with a gun?” The man murmured, clutching and jerking Artax’s reins around toward the way they had been heading, his dark eyes never leaving whatever lay behind Lance.

That was when he turned. From the far reaches of the bridge, the trees had begun to rustle unnaturally along the sides of the highway. Lance watched, stricken and already counting his bullets as a hundred-body swarm of undead lumbered out of the trees onto the highway. They cleared the dip of the off-road easy, stumbling and crawling and groaning onto the concrete in a bloody grimy wave.

“Yeah.” Lance was breathless, choking on air almost as he spotted the sprinters, clawed and darkened by dusted decay breaking the lines of the slow walkers and running fast toward the bridge as their sensitive noses picked up the scent of the living.  

“Good, let’s fucking go.”

Lance whipped back around, staring at the man as he reached out his arm to Lance. Without a second thought, Lance clasped onto it, hauling himself up behind the man onto his horse. He’d never ridden a horse, but immediately adjusted as the man handed him the semi-automatic rifle from around his chest. He was wobbly, but easily turned in the seat, cocking the gun and picking off on the sprinters as it neared the bridge. He faintly heard the soft chuckle of the stranger as he kicked the horse into a sprint, due North.

Over the wind in his ears, the footfalls of Artax on the concrete and the screeches of the sprinters as they began to chase, the stranger called out, “Name’s Keith.”

Lance grabbed onto the man’s belt, flipping himself around on the mare to sit backwards and lean his back to Keith’s as he raised the rifle again, “Lance! Nice to meet you.”


	2. we're the beginning of the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is part 2 of the more than alive au!! It's written by me (rachel) and maire. Make sure to support us on tumblr @somethingmorecreative1 and @maireeps

The sun was probably a few hours from setting, and the wind was getting chilly. It blew almost constantly now, sometimes harder, sometimes softer, and Lance thought that the weather was ominous enough without the sound of Artax’s hooves clopping on the empty street and the breaths Keith let out every few minutes.

They had been traveling for hours before Keith finally tugged on Artax’s reins and turned his head enough to say, “I think we should find somewhere to camp for the night. I’ve never been in this part of the country before.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, and he couldn’t really help the bitter edge to his voice, “sounds good to me, cowboy.”

Keith didn’t say anything else; Lance didn’t expect him to.

Along the way on the back of the beautiful horse, Lance had started thinking and wishing that he never would have crawled out of that semi this morning. He almost thought he would have rather dealt with the walkers on the road and his absolute lack of a plan than be on the back of a horse with the most annoying person left in the world.

Because Keith hadn’t said hardly  _anything_ to him. Even when Lance had started to talk to him, Keith had either ignored him or shushed him in the fear of walkers hearing them. He didn’t tell Lance where they were going, didn’t ask him for any advice, barely even bothered with telling him his name and asking him to shoot down the roamers that were pursuing them. Since then, he’d been nearly silent. Lance wondered if he wished he would have left Lance behind too.

Now, Keith silently offered him some water. Lance took it, had a sip, and handed it back to him without saying a damn word.

The road ahead of them was empty, but the road behind them was full of walkers, roamers,  _biters_. There wasn’t a difference in any of the names that they called them; they walked after you, some faster than others, and it only took one raw second, one mistake for you to become one of them.

Sometimes, Lance wondered if any of it was worth it. If, the next time one of  _them_ was headed straight for him, if he would just stand still and wait. Then, he would at least be with his family. Then, he wouldn’t be so fucking  _alone_.

Keith’s presence did nothing to chase away his loneliness. For however pretty he was, it was misleading because he was an asshole.

For what seemed like the hundredth time today, Lance reminded himself that he was going to find Hunk. Hunk was all he had left anymore. He would meet him in Canada even if it killed him.

Which, it very well could. But that was the thing about having nothing left; it made all the huge, terrifying risks seem like manageable options instead.

Almost an hour after Keith had suggested finding somewhere to camp, they came upon a dirt road right off the abandoned highway. Keith clicked his teeth and pulled at Artax’s reins, and she stopped easily.

“Should we try it?” Keith’s voice was quiet. It matched the wind around them.

Lance looked around. He didn’t see any tracks that could be recent—which is something he’d gotten quite good at over the past few weeks, tracking. It had helped him stay alive and avoid trouble more times than he could count.

“It’s going to get dark soon,” he said, “so it’s either try it or stay on the road in the dark.”

Keith didn’t reply. Instead, he nudged Artax, and they started down the dirt road.

They blended into the trees as they continued down the road. Lance kept his eyes sharp, looking around them for walkers, but he hadn’t seen anything in hours. He wondered how close they were to D.C. Surely Keith had lead them in the opposite direction; surely he knew how dangerous the cities could be.

Trash and debris started to litter the road. There were more footprints in the dirt too, and from the way that they had edged out of the trees and dragged in the dirt, Lance had a wild guess that they were from walkers.

The trees cleared suddenly, and in the middle of the clearing ahead of them sat a small house, a wooden cabin. Lance was surprised by how ravaged it looked, how terribly undone this place looked.

Artax hesitated and came to a stop just as a walker turned toward them.

“Stay here,” Keith ordered. He slipped off of the saddle, boots hitting the ground with a thud. Lance was stuck between pissed off at being told what to do and grateful for not having to move.

He kept watch from Artax while Keith approached the walker and reached for his sword. He pulled it from the sheath on his back in one swift motion, and the blade’s metal glistened in the setting sunlight. Keith gripped the sword in his left hand and swung upward, taking off the walker’s head in one clean motion. Then, he stabbed the blade through the decapitated head.

Keith kept his sword out and looked over at Lance from underneath the brim of his black hat. He nodded toward the house and said, “I’ll clear it. You keep watch.”

Lance crossed his arms over his chest, but Keith didn’t wait for him to reply before he set off into the house.

“Is he always like this?” Lance asked Artax. She whinnied softly in response.

The clearing was empty of other walkers. There were a few bodies, and there was an abandoned car, with the door standing open. Trash littered the ground, so Lance didn’t even hope for finding any food or supplies here. This place had probably been cleared out long ago.

Keith came back out onto the old, rotting porch moments later. He nodded and sheathed his sword, “All clear. We can block the door for tonight.”

Lance didn’t bother replying. Instead, he swung his leg over and slid off Artax’s back, groaning a little when his feet hit the ground. His hips and back were sorer than he could ever remember them being in his entire life. In fact, his whole body was sore. Between all the running he’d done over the past few weeks and riding all day, he was surprised he could even move.

He looked up when he heard Keith smirking at him, “First time riding?”

Lance felt his cheeks heat up from both anger and lust. Keith’s smug expression did everything right for his beautiful face, and the way he was standing, with one hip cocked to the side, hat sitting crooked on his head, did the rest.

“No, jackass,” he replied airily. “It’s definitely not my first time.”

Keith didn’t say anything. Instead, he raised an eyebrow before walking forward to grab Artax’s reins. He shouldered past Lance, arms brushing each other, and headed back into the house, carefully guiding Artax inside.

He looked around. It was already starting to get dark, and if he tried to run right now, he probably wouldn’t make it very far.

He followed Keith and Artax inside.

;;

“Do you expect that thing to actually work?”

Lance looked up sharply. He had his phone in his hand, using it for the first time today. Usually, he kept it on airplane mode and played music while he was walking. It always did a good job of keeping him distracted, and honestly, it made him feel less alone.

Keith was looking at him. He couldn’t read the other man’s expression, but the tone in his voice irked Lance.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Lance snapped. Instead of waiting for a response, he popped his ear buds in and leaned back onto the ground, crossing his arms underneath his head. He fumed silently.

Minutes later, while he was trying to calm himself down with the sweet sound of Beyoncé, he felt something kick his shoe, and he opened his eyes to see Keith standing over him.

He took an earbud out. “What?”

“I asked if you were going to help me,” Keith said, jerking his head toward the door. “But if you’re too busy—”

“What’s your problem?”

Keith looked shocked for half a second until his expression settled back into what Lance had dubbed his resting bitch face. He couldn’t read his expression, other than the boredom, and honestly, he really didn’t care. At least, he tried to tell himself he didn’t.

“I don’t have a problem,” Keith’s voice was clipped short, which infuriated Lance to no end. How did this asshole not even show emotions? Did he just not have any? What was fucking wrong with him? “Do you?”

Lance rolled to his feet and stalked past Keith, grabbing the old couch and pushing it toward the door. Keith appeared at his side a few seconds later, and together, they shoved the couch against the door.

Lance leaned back up and turned to face Keith. He said, “I don’t have a problem either.”

“You sure about that?”

Instead of answering, he stared at Keith. The other man was staring right back at Lance, dark eyes wary, black hair frizzy. He’d taken off his Stetson and left it with his pack in the corner of the room with Artax, but he hadn’t removed any of his weapons. In fact, his hand was drifting awfully close to where he had a knife strapped to his belt.

Suddenly, Lance was overcome with wanting to leave. He needed to get out of here. He needed to leave. Fuck, he didn’t even know this guy. He could be some creep or—

“I’m sure,” Lance said. His voice sounded weird to his own ears. Despite everything in him screaming at him not to, he turned his back to Keith and went back to the other side of the small room. He laid back down on the ground, curling around his pack and keeping everything close. He kept his fingers on his knife.

He could still hear Keith shuffling around the room, so a few minutes later, he tossed over his shoulder, “Wake me up for watch later.”

;;

Keith woke him up with a kick to the leg and a simple, “Your watch.”

It felt like it had been five minutes from the time that Lance laid down, but when he sat up, it was completely dark outside the poorly boarded-up window. He checked his phone to see the time, more out of habit than anything, and found that it had been several hours and dawn wasn’t far off.

He watched absently as Keith crossed the room and settled onto the ground in front of Artax. He rolled onto his side away from Lance and got really still.

Lance quietly pulled some food and water from his pack. He would have to scavenge more today to be able to keep moving. Since yesterday, Keith hadn’t offered him any more water, and now, as Lance drank the rest of his own, he decided that when dawn came, he was leaving with it.

After he made his decision, he recounted his supplies. He still had a few candy bars, an empty bottle of water, and a pack of gum. He had the small gun he’d found at the very beginning, five bullets, and his knife. Then, he had a few extra shirts and an extra pair of jeans, along with another pair of boxers. He still had all his phone chargers, another pair of headphones, and the small solar charger that his sister had gotten him for his birthday a few years ago. Plus, all of his somewhat useless skin care products.

It was all he had now. His small pack, his guitar, his supplies, and his memories.

Dawn came quickly, and Lance gathered his supplies and got to his feet silently. He pulled the couch back enough for him to slip out of the door, and as he set his pack and guitar case out onto the porch, Artax lifted her head to look at him.

“Shh,” he murmured to her. She was a beautiful horse. He hoped Keith would take good care of her. “I’ll block it back. Goodbye, gorgeous.”

She whined quietly, but Keith never moved. Lance slipped through the door and pulled the couch after him to block the door back because even if Keith was an asshole, he wasn’t going to leave him vulnerable to any walkers. He knelt and grabbed his pack, throwing it on his back, and he slipped his guitar case over his chest too, using the rope he’d found as a makeshift strap while he looked around. The yard was empty of walkers, and the wind was oddly silent. Nothing was moving today, but Lance kept his hand on his knife anyway as he set off at a jog.

Despite the clear sky and warm sunshine on his face, something felt off. Lance had gotten used to being on his own in the past few weeks; he was used to the quiet, to the constant watchfulness that he needed throughout the day. He was capable of watching his own back and taking care of himself. He had gotten used to this weeks ago, as soon as he realized that he couldn’t trust other people anymore.

So why did it feel different today? Out of every other day, after everything else that had happened, why did it feel so  _weird_ , so  _different_  today?

Lance jogged until he got to the paved highway, and he let himself look back once before he turned and headed in the direction Keith had been leading them yesterday. He could stop and scavenge at the next place he found, possibly wait for Keith to pass by, get a plan together before he started to head northwest in search of Hunk.

He walked for the better part of a couple of hours. The day was turning out to be more beautiful than Lance could remember in a while. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and if he was back in Cuba with his family, his dad would say that it was the perfect day for gardening and surfing when they finished their chores.

Lance stopped suddenly and ducked down to the pavement. There was a car ahead, sitting in the middle of the road. It looked like it had been moved recently. It was cleaner than abandoned cars tended to be, and Lance could see supplies stacked in the back of it through the windows.

He wondered if it was a trap. But—he was so thirsty. Maybe there was some water inside?

He would be quick, and he would only take what he needed.

Lance shoved his gun into the pocket inside his jacket where he could grab it easily in case he needed it. He hoped he didn’t—he only had a few bullets left and he didn’t know when or if he would be able to find more.

He would grab what he needed and be on his way. That was all. It wouldn’t take long, and nothing would happen. Nothing would happen.

It took him a few more minutes before he had convinced himself enough to rise and start toward the car.

Lance ran forward. His hands were shaking, and he could hear his heartbeat racing in his ears. He dashed to the side of the car and looked around quickly, crouching down beside the back door of the passenger side. He held his breath while he reached for the door handle and eased it open.

The car alarm that he was expecting never came. Instead, the door opened with just a small creak, and when he looked inside, there was a mountain of supplies. Clothes, food, knives—

_Water_. There were bottles of it.

Lance grinned to himself and reached forward, grabbing as many as he could hold. He reached around and grabbed his pack, opening it and shoving the water down into it. Fuck, thank god he found it—

He was trying to decide if he should get some of the food when he heard a gun cock.

He jumped, reaching for his knife and—

“Why don’t you just slow down there, pretty boy?”

The voice was slow, calm. It had a southern twang to it, and it made Lance think of those other men that he had faced a few weeks ago. Fuck, just the way he called him “pretty boy” made Lance think of so many of the people he’d met since the end of the world that had tried to screw him over.

“I’ll put everything back and leave,” Lance offered, finding his voice. It only shook a little.

“Now why would I want that? Especially when it looks like I’ve finally found myself some good company.”

Lance swallowed.

The voice continued, “Don’t try anything stupid, now. I’ll shoot you if you do, alright? Just turn around slowly and we can talk about this, can’t we?”

Lance took a breath and turned around.

The man facing him had obviously seen better days. He was older, beard and hair long turned gray. His eyes were dark, and the way his mouth was quirked didn’t give Lance any hope that he would just let him go. He was holding a semiautomatic pistol—a Smith & Wesson, Lance thought—straight at Lance’s chest.

“Where’ya from, boy?” the man asked.

“New York,” he said, staring at the gun. The safety was off.

“And where you headed?”

“Canada.”

The man laughed, “Shit, boy, you still think that’s gonna work out? Fuck me. Canada’s drowning in them rotters just like we are.”

Lance felt his heart drop in his chest but—this lunatic didn’t  _know._ He didn’t know for sure that Canada was gone. There was no way.

Right?

“Well then,” the man moved closer, squatting to the ground in front of Lance. He titled Lance’s chin up with the barrel of the gun. “You’re not going to Canada. Me an’ you are just gonna stay out here and have lots of fun, how about it?”

“No,” Lance muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“No,” Lance repeated, louder this time. He would rather—he would rather  _be shot_ right now, right here, than have anything to do with this man. At least then he’d be with his family, at least then he’d—

“That just won’t work, boy,” the man hummed, leaning into Lance’s space. He smelled and his teeth were yellowing with age and Lance could feel the breath on his neck because he was so close. The pistol was digging into his ribs now and—

Then, suddenly, without warning, a single shot echoed through the otherwise empty air, and the man jerked back. Lance followed his gaze, and he must have already been dead because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

A black figure was standing in the middle of the road, holding a semiautomatic rifle in one hand and a sword in the other. The sun was behind the figure, casting a heavy shadow onto the pavement, and there was a thin cloud of smoke rising from the gun, from where it had been fired. Behind the figure, there was something else, and it… from here, it looked like a horse.

“I believe I heard him tell you no,” the figure said, and Lance recognized the voice in less than a heartbeat.

Keith and Artax.  _Keith and Artax!_

“Why don’t you pretend like you didn’t hear anything and just move along?” the man said, leaning back from Lance a bit and crouching in front of him.

Keith lifted his head enough that Lance could see his face underneath his Stetson. His expression was… Lance hadn’t known Keith long at all, but Lance knew enough that Keith was furious. His voice was colder than anything he’d ever used with Lance when he said, “Get away from him or I’ll kill you.”

There was a second of tense silence before the man laughed a little. “He’s mine now, son. Might as well take that beautiful horse of yours and move on. Can’t have it all, now can you?”

While the man had his eyes on Keith, Lance carefully, slowly, moved his hand to his jacket and grabbed his gun.

Keith grit his teeth and growled, “ _Get_   _away from him_.”

Artax huffed menacingly, echoing Keith’s point.

“No can do,” the man shrugged. “You can either move on or stay and watch.”

Tears pricked Lance’s eyes as the man leaned back in toward him, ghosting his chapped lips and nasty beard over Lance’s jaw. Lance tightened his fingers around the gun, dug it into the man’s chest, and pulled the trigger.

The echo was louder than Lance thought it would be, and the blood spray was worse. It was everywhere. The man’s full weight sagged onto Lance, and he cried out, shoving at him and—

Keith was there the next second, grabbing the man’s body and tossing it off of him. He grabbed Lance’s arms and hauled him up and away from the car, sweeping him a few feet away. His hands were frantic, tracing up and down his arms and it took Lance a few seconds to realize that he was talking.

“Fuck, Lance, Lance,” he was saying, “are you okay? Are you hurt? Tell me where you’re hurt. Oh god, fuck, what happened? Where—?”

“Keith?” Lance asked, voice wobbling.

Keith nodded, and he reached up to tilt his hat back so he could see his face completely. His dark eyes were wide, heavy with worry. His mouth was set into a grim line. Lance looked down. At some point, Keith had dropped both his sword and his gun, probably in his rush to get over to Lance after—

Lance was still gripping the gun. He hand was sticky with blood from where he had been so close, and it covered his clothes. Some of it had splattered on his face too.

He forced his fingers open, and the gun clattered to the pavement. Then, nausea swooped through him, bile was rushing up his throat, and he doubled over and puked. His pack and guitar slipped off of his back.

Keith’s hand smoothed over his back, carefully, lightly. When Lance was done and he leaned back up, he was surprised to see Keith looking at him.

“Was that the first person you’ve killed?”

Lance nodded numbly.

Keith nodded too, and his voice was serious when he said, “He deserved it, Lance. He wasn’t going to stop. Nothing would have made him stop until one of us killed him. There was nothing else you could have done. Nothing else would have worked.”

“I know,” Lance choked out.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

Lance frowned. Was he… Was Keith being  _serious?_

“I left you,” he whispered. He couldn’t get his voice any louder.

“You blocked the door behind you,” Keith murmured, matching his volume. “You said goodbye to Artax.”

“You were awake?”

“Of course I was awake,” Keith offered him a small smile, one that didn’t really touch his eyes. “You’re really loud.”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?”

Keith shrugged then, and for the first time, he looked away from Lance. One of his hands was still gripping Lance’s forearm, but his fingers were loose and careful. He said, “I wasn’t going to stop you if you really wanted to go. I still won’t. If you don’t want to stay with me… I understand. I wasn’t following you either, and I won’t if you decide to leave again. I can help you get this car started so you can go.”

Lance blinked. He was still shaking from earlier, and honestly, he couldn’t imagine what would have happened if Keith hadn’t shown up and—

And now Keith was going to help him get a car and leave. He was offering to help him and let him leave, no strings.

“Why?” Lance asked.

Keith shrugged again, and if Lance’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, he was blushing. He said, “Artax really likes you, and she never takes to new people. Plus, you’re good with a gun and—”

Artax was there then, and she huffed and shoved Keith’s shoulder with her nose.

He sighed, glaring at her before turning back to Lance with a softer look. His face and voice were both honest when he said, “I like you too. I think—I think we would make a good team. I know I have Artax, but… being alone is dangerous, and I’m—I’m tired. I think you feel the same way.”

Lance stared at him. He stared for so long that a few walkers wandered out into the road, and Keith nodded, telling him to stay with Artax while he took care of them.

Artax drifted closer to Lance, and she let him step into her, burying his face into her soft coat.

Keith was back a few seconds later, a steady presence behind him. He said, “I don’t know what I did to make you leave in the first place but—I’m sorry.”

“I thought you hated me,” Lance muttered, voice muffled by Artax. “You didn’t talk to me. I thought you wanted me to leave.”

“I didn’t,” Keith responded. “I don’t want you to leave. Unless you want to. Then I’ll help you.”

Lance took a breath, trying to calm his heart. A few seconds later, he managed to turn toward Keith. He was gripping his sword loosely in his hand, but he was staring at Lance.

“Okay,” he said, stepping closer to Keith.

He frowned, “Okay, you’re leaving?”

Lance rolled his eyes, but the gesture was soft, and there was a smile biting at the edges of his mouth. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

“You will?” There was a hopeful edge to Keith’s voice, which filled Lance with relief.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

;;

They went back to the cabin to stay and regroup for a few days. Lance was still shaking from earlier, and Keith didn’t act like he was in a hurry to get on the road either. Lance drove the car with the supplies back while Keith and Artax followed him, and they sat on the porch together while Artax grazed in the front yard. Every so often, a walker would stumble out of the woods, and Keith would heave a sigh and get up with his sword.

Keith sat back down on the steps beside Lance from doing just that. His voice was soft when he said, “Where’s your family?”

“Cuba,” Lance responded, leaning his head against his knees and looking up at him. Keith was leaned back on his hands, staring straight ahead, sword resting across his lap. “I was at NYU going to school. I talked to my mom right before the islands were swarmed, but after that…”

Lance trailed off, not knowing how to finish, not knowing if he wanted to.

“That’s why I’m heading toward Canada,” Lance continued a few minutes later when he’d found his voice. “My best friend and his family were going that way. I told him I would meet him there. He’s all I have left anyway.”

Keith nodded silently, and the wind drifted around them. Artax grazed silently too.

“I don’t have anyone left either,” Keith said suddenly, breaking the silence. “My dad’s ranch was overrun early on. Artax and I… we were the only ones that made it.”

“What are you doing all the way up here then?”

“I have—had a brother who lived a few hours north of D.C. He was a GI, and when everything went to shit, my dad told me to go find him. I went to his house first but… everything was gone. He was gone too,” Keith’s voice cracked over the last sentence. “I don’t have anything left.”

Fuck, Lance knew how Keith felt. Having your entire family just be gone… yeah, he knew that. He knew what it was like to be alone, to be lonely, to feel like you were the only person in the fucking world.

And honestly, why bother? Why would anyone bother with living when they felt that way?

Keith had been right earlier. Lance was tired. He was tired of being alone.

He lifted his head from his knees and scooted closer to Keith until he was right beside him. Then, he lowered his head to Keith’s shoulder and said, “You’ve got me if you want me.”

Keith’s breath caught in his chest, but Lance pretended like he didn’t notice. They’d had a hard day, both of them. Tomorrow would be better. Everything was going to be okay.

It even felt like it would when Keith leaned into him and murmured, “You’ve got me too.”


	3. still breathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eee chapter three! thank you green day for the chapter title :> this chapter was all me, maireep! looking forward to rachel's~

Lance was starting to regret staying.

 

Keith was socially awkward, quiet, and argumentative. He was too stubborn, too thick-headed, didn’t get jokes and was solely focused on necessity - like surviving. He got it! He really did! He wanted to hunt too, and rest and find fresh water but hell, it would’ve been better without having to ride a solid three hours on his sore unaccustomed ass because his cowboy partner wanted to cover more ground. Even Artax, easily , was on Keith’s side - simply adoring all the riding to combat her nearly endless supply of energy. Keith would call her a “colt” almost adoringly, but Lance was more than a little bitter about it.

He wasn’t regretting staying for conventional reasons.

Mostly, it was because Keith was too much. He was too easy to joke with, too easy to make fun of, too easy to stare at. Lance had too many instances where he had caught himself staring at Keith’s lips and idly thinking of how long ago he had last been kissed. But on the other hand, Keith was too much. He was solemn, static and hard to read. Every time Lance began to clue in on his behavior, there’d be another shift that would throw their already rocky friendship spiraling off some cliff. It was like he was locking Lance out.

He had barely known the guy for a week, but it was already starting to bother him. They had agreed to circle up back north, after Keith had saved him from that creepy prowler. There had been little in his life that had scared him worse than the undead that sprawled the country, but that man had been something else entirely. If Keith hadn’t been there…

Lance shivered, and was glad he could blame it on the cold air.

They had returned to the cabin after more supply runs into the small expansions of towns and farms dotting off of Route 1. Artax grazed on patches of green a few feet from the clearing. Between the trees, he could see Keith stack wood bundles on the porch before moving the sealed off door to carry them inside. Lance shrugged his jacket completely off, placing it by his shoes. To keep up against the roaming hoards, they took turns between work and keeping watch during the days. He almost wished for the comfy warm seat of the semi instead of the laid out bedrolls on the cabin floor as he stepped out of his ripped jeans and bundled it along with his discarded shirt.

The rocks were slippery when he stepped into the river, feeling fish jolt past his calves as he waded further into the water. Sure his skin crawled with the slimy scales against his legs, but the cool slow-moving water felt heavenly against his sticky skin.

The ride had been particularly stifling during the afternoon, and the humidity rose still as the evening turned from bronze to dark. Keith had been half-teaching him, half-smugly commenting him on his riding, especially when he had handed Lance Artax’s lead and took off to check the perimeter of clearings they had came upon. Lance hadn’t really been the best rider on his father’s ranch, on their dopey old Phillip. He had been squat and slow, and Artax was like a living Maserati. He didn’t want to ask Keith, for fear of that devilishly handsome smirk, but Artax was clearly a Thoroughbred - miles upon miles away from the stable pony his father kept.

He hunkered down into the water, cupping it up to his shoulders and running his cool hands through the back of his neck and jaw. The entire length of his body ached from the day and his breach into relaxation stalled, feeling the slick of the water against his stomach and catch on hairs he would’ve otherwise razored away the second they had appeared. He wondered if it was too late to wiggle out of the stream and grab his travel razor and some body wash from his pack without flashing Keith on the way.

Grumbling, he sank further into the water until he submerged his head. The soft rush of water against his cheeks felt like the creek down the acre of the ranch, past the small swing his father had hung for his mother and just around the clearing they had made in his elementary years for an ecosystem project. Just like the creek, the slime of scales rolled against his ankle and he breached the water, sputtering. Water ran down his face, pushing his hair, the longest it had been in a while, into his face. He swiped it back and turned back to the rocky bank. Making sure to shake his hand off, he searched through the pockets of his jacket before grasping onto his iPhone. He placed it on the biggest boulder, in the sunlight before shuffling his downloaded music.

Bebe Rexha echoed against the crevices of the rock, with soft piano and the twang of guitars to support the soft lyrics. For all the couple thousand songs downloaded to the sturdy phone, he hadn’t listened to this particular song in a while. It was one of his more odd choices, the kind that would’ve made his roommate Nyma wrinkle her nose when he placed his phone on the iPhone dock. She was always critical about his music, something about his utter lack for appreciation of trap music. He'd always reply with scathingly mainstreamed trap songs that he liked, just to make her nose wrinkle in distaste. He sunk into the water, letting it raise around his ears. He missed her. He missed their shitty RA, he missed the kid in his Earth Science class who smelled of weed or the barista at the corner café who spelled his name wrong consistently. He missed whatever horrid person dropped gum on his hair at the club, he missed his hideous husk of a Psychology professor and her shit grading curves and more importantly he missed Hunk. He missed Hunk and he missed his family.

Footfalls and then a plop. He turned to see Keith sit on the boulder a bit away, leaning over to tug off his camel boots without even untying the red laces. He hid his face momentarily to blink before Keith spoke up.

“Is this Florida Georgia Line?”

Lance looked up, eyebrows knit, “What?”  
  
Keith looked up from his boots, blinking, “This song. Florida Georgia Line? I could recognize Kelley and Hubbard in my sleep.”

“Uh…” Lance turned to his phone, squinting at the screen, “I guess so? It’s by Bebe Rexha, just featuring them.” The tops of his cheekbones felt numb, the corners of his mouth peaking gently. Keith was utterly a cowboy, even so much as recognizing country singers in some dance pop love song.

Keith hummed but said nothing else, stacking his boots beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance watched as Keith tugged his plaid shirt over his head. He wore a worn blank tank underneath, highlighting the swell of biceps and the stark line where his tan skin met contrasting pale white. Lance could’ve drown himself, just slip backwards into the flow of the stream and let it carry his otherwise naked body to the depths. Instead he sunk down, engulfing himself in the water and trying to shake the idea of Keith’s fuckin’ farmers’ tan out of his head. It didn’t help his starved body deemed it woefully attractive.

Later, when Keith had retreated back to camp to cook whatever harvest he had caught for them that evening, Lance dried off and redressed. The heat was subsiding, and he had first shift on watch duty, picking the last meat off his skewer and watching Artax doze in her patch of grass. Keith sat on the ground, turned in with his Stetson covering his face. They hadn’t spoken too much since nights ago, when Lance had killed his first man and they had inexplicably tied themselves to one another. Every time Lance tried, Keith would shuffle away after a few comments.

He was getting used to it.

Lance stood up, careful to not trip over Keith’s legs as he stepped outside and gradually led Artax to the small porch. She whinnied softly, and mouthed at his hair with her lips as he tied her lead to the cabin. She settled in immediately, but snorted almost unhappily when he turned away.

“Alright girl.” He smiled, rolling his eyes as he went back to her. Quietly he placed his palms onto the banister of the cabin and hauled himself onto it. The wood banister was rough, leaving him to wiggle for a better position as he leaned against Artax’s flank. She tossed her mane, the long blank tendrils smacking his face and catching in his mouth.

“Bleh!” He spat out, “Artax!”

She whinnied back, practically in the same tone. Her hair had dragged his chapstick from his lips to his chin, and he pawed at his chin with his jacket sleeve. The taste of hair and grass was in his mouth and he frowned.

“Aw hun,” He cooed, reaching back to comb his fingers through her hair, “I never feel the same when my hair is dirty too. Lemme get those tangles for you.”

Slowly he picked at Artax’s hair, leaning against her flank and methodically plaiting her mane in tiny braids. Lance wasn’t sure if it was what she was looking for, but she didn’t complain, and he was glad for it. She slowly dozed, and it reminded him so much of braiding his mother’s or sisters’ hair, he started to relax too.

In the distance, there were howls, groans and rustling. A hundred feet shuffled onward, the sound reverberating for miles around in the silent dark. The night came and went before he even slept a wink, listening to the echoes braced against Artax. He didn’t think Keith slept either.

 

* * *

 

He knew what Keith was going to say even before he said it.

They’d be together for a week and a half when Keith looked to him with those imploring eyes. Lance agreed, he already knew he agreed. Their rations were dwindling, their fresh water was low and the cars on the interstate near them were picked dry by either them or prowlers.

They had to go into D.C. The towns were running dry, and farmsteads were entirely encompassed by the moving hordes of rotters. It was almost migrational, like packs of birds flying north for the winter. Lance had begun to vaguely wonder if there was a pattern to it, as summer was starting to tighten its grip.

He sat on the porch of the cabin, with the rough wood sticking through his jeans as Keith suited Artax up with their bedrolls and his packs. Lance had tucked away his iPhone before anything else. On top of the food and water they needed, he needed a new battery for his solar charger, maybe a new razor and some deodorant. He was a young man sure, and it was the apocalypse yes, but hell he still wanted to smell good. He couldn’t have it like Keith, who happened to smell like a woodsy musky Old Spice expo, even if he was covered in blood and guts and rotting flesh.

He rubbed his forehead and looked up at Keith as he approached.

“Ready?” Keith tipped his Stetson back, framing out the sun and looking down at him in the shade. His black hair was stuck to his forehead from the heat, and his earrings gleamed in the afternoon light.

Absentmindedly, Lance rolled his thumb and forefinger over one of his own earrings and stood. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”  
  
Keith snorted, and hauled himself onto Artax. Lance followed, less gracefully and more or less fumbling on Keith’s shoulders to keep himself upright as he sat in the saddle behind him. The inner muscles of his thighs were beginning to steel up, but still ached furiously from their rides - as if he had just twerked in a club for 48 hours or did hot pilates with Nyma again. He shuffled forward, pressing his hips to Keith’s behind but keeping space between his chest and Keith’s back.

Keith stirred Artax out of the clearing, toward the overpass onto the freeway. They cleared the line of trees quickly as Artax broke into a trot, climbing the slope up the shoulder of the road onto the concrete. The sun stood fiery in the sky, mid east and glaring onto the back of his neck like it was angry at him for skipping on his face routine or something. He melted backward, making even more space between his body and Keith’s.

“It’s hot.” He complained, placing his palms on Artax’s haunches to keep him upright.

He could practically feel Keith roll his eyes, “You haven’t been to Texas then.”

Lance pouted, sliding his gaze to the side as they rode on. He rolled his sleeves over his forearms, glad he stuffed his jacket into his pack earlier. His guitar case was annoyingly sticking against his back. “I don’t think I’d ever want to be.”

And the most odd thing happened.

Keith laughed. It was low, but more than an chuckle. His shoulders shook, the Stetson tilting back as the musical low laughter came from him. Lance stared.

“Ain’t that right,” Keith snorted, “Shit’s a hellhole.”

Lance leaned in, “Yeah? I feel like you’d be the type to have some state pride.”

Keith’s hat moved with the shake of his head. He kicked Artax onward, weaving her between forgotten cars Lance had practically memorized the position of by now. “I feel like you get to have pride in your state if it has pride in you. Sure I grew up wrangling Mustangs but a gay son of a disgraced alcoholic G.I. and an absent mother ain’t really Texas-pride.”

This time the odd thing was all on him. He openly choked on his own spit, going rigid behind Keith on Artax. His stomach had simultaneously turned into jelly and erupted into fire. Lance was an idiot. Was his gay radar that wrong? That obtuse? Here he was thinking this cowboy was easily the straightest person he’d ever met, maybe just some Southern kid who thought pierced earrings were more of a modern thing instead of what they really thought, and -

He wanted to slap his forehead. Yeah they were partners now, each others’ family at this point but just because Keith was gay didn’t mean he had a chance. Lance pulled at his collar, choked some semblance of a hum and let the conversation fall.

Gradually they left the interstate behind for inner towns. The lines of suburbs were desolate, ravaged by fire and panic. Houses stood half-burned through or bolted up with boards and nails. Through the back suburbs, they trotted slowly around to the city center. Among the middle was a square town park, with gazebo, in front of the City Hall. Walkers milled around in scattered groups, and with no sign of runners or their crawling counterparts, they quietly took the sidewalk around the perimeter due North.

Lance watched a small girl in a tattered t-shirt bump into the General Store door repeatedly, sickness rolling in a coil in his stomach.

He turned away as they passed on, keeping his eyes down to the saddle.

By the next town, the walkers were thicker. They had to utterly pass the town completely, giving it a wide berth. The inner city was crawling with bodies, swarmed with hordes and clumps of runners like little pesky flies. Flies that could kill you in instants. Keith said nothing but Lance could feel the tension in his back, as Artax cantered nervously until Keith tugged her around. They kept silent, and Lance pulled out his handgun to load rounds into it.

After the inner city had passed, there were only throughs of walkers along the roads. Instead of engaging, they rode hard and fast past them into the suburbs. Artax was fast enough to barely alerting the walkers until they were long gone. In that moment, he was glad to have stayed with Keith and Artax. If he was alone, he would’ve surely been downed in the inner city and… God knows what.

The suburbs for this town were spaced out, with lawns that sprawled in small hills and lined with bushes. A few walkers milled in the treeline behind the houses, groaning endlessly like a constant hum. Lance kept the safety on on his handgun but settled it in his lap between their bodies.

At the end of the block, Artax stopped.

Keith grunted, kicking his heel lightly, “Artax?”

A line of panic rolled up his spine, and he grabbed onto the back of Keith’s plaid shirt with one hand, the thumb of his other hand pressed hard on the safety of the gun.

“What is it?” Lance croaked, pushing closer to Keith subconsciously.

Keith stilled, frozen like Artax as she raised her head, ears pricked to the house at the end of the block.

Finally Keith spoke, ruff and low, but enough to set the hair on the back of his neck on end, “There’s someone in the window.”  



	4. room for one more troubled soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey! this chapter is all me (rachel), and I've switched to Keith's POV so my chapters will be Keith from here on out. Hope you guys like this and I can't wait to see what maire comes back with!! Be sure to check us out on tumblr @somethingmorecreative1 and @maireep

The end of the world was a good place for secrets; Keith had plenty of them.

He could feel his heart stuttering in his chest. Lance had moved even closer to him, pressing up against his back almost completely, fisting one hand in the back of his shirt. Since they had been riding Artax together, Lance had done a good job of staying as far away from him as he could. Even though their hips were always pressed together from the saddle, Lance made sure to keep his distance other than that.

One of Keith’s secrets was Lance.

“What do we do?” Lance’s voice was low, directly in Keith’s ear. “Are you sure it’s not a walker?”

Keith shook his head and stared up at the window. The house was probably about a block from them, but Keith could see the clear figure standing at the window. He could also see the rifle they were holding in their hands.

“Not a walker,” Keith said.

Artax huffed suddenly, tittering underneath them. There were a few walkers stumbling toward them now, and they needed to _move_.

He tightened his grip on Artax’s reins.

“Keith,” Lance said nervously. He heard a sharp _click_ as Lance flicked the safety off on his handgun.

“Hold on to me,” he said, jerking on Artax’s reins. She spun instantly, and they raced in the other direction, back down the street. Lance’s arms came around his waist, and he held on tight.

In the distance, there was a single shot in the air.

He urged Artax to run faster, and they spun around another street corner. Keith turned to look behind them, trying to make sure that there weren’t any walkers following them too closely in case—

Artax came to a stop so suddenly that Keith and Lance almost flew out of the saddle. She cried out and spun again and—

They ran right into a horde of walkers.

Dead hands and arms endlessly reached for them. Keith could feel the tight grips on his legs, and he jerked on Artax’s reins, trying to get her to _move_ or _something_.

“Keith! Sword!” Lance was yelling now, gripping onto his waist with one arm and aiming his gun into the crowd with the other. He shot one of the dead bodies just as its teeth were about to fall to Artax’s shoulder, and the weight collapsing against her seemed to snap her out of the fog because she turned and started running again.

Keith yanked his sword from his back, trying to avoid hitting Lance while they raced away. He swiped the walkers that got too close to them away, and Lance was still firing his gun. Keith knew he didn’t have a lot of bullets left so—

Artax ran hard and fast. She was spooked enough that she wasn’t listening to Keith anymore, even when he tried to urge her to slow down. They raced back to the main road, and suddenly, there were walkers everywhere. They were flooding the street, stumbling and reaching for them as they passed. Keith tried to keep the ones closest to them away, but Artax kept running, straight for the house at the end of the street.

“Shoot whoever is in the window!” Keith said to Lance, barely turning his head to look back at him.

“They’re gone!”

Keith cursed, loudly and colorfully. There were walkers everywhere. Fuck, Keith didn’t even know if they could make it to the house despite there being someone that wanted to kill them there. They had been shooting at them before and—

The walkers started to group up in front of them, and Artax skittered nervously again. Keith grit his teeth, swung his leg over the saddle, and jumped down to the street, brandishing his sword in front of them.

“Keith!” Lance shouted, wildly grabbing for Artax’s reins as she neighed desperately.

Keith barely had time to glance at them before he stepped in front and started running forward, clearing the walkers with every hard, deliberate swing of his sword. “Clearing us a fucking path! Stay on my ass!”

They rushed forward, Keith running as hard as he could to get to the walkers in front of them. The crowd behind them was only getting thicker, but they only needed to get a few more hundred feet. If they could get to the house, then they could deal with whatever was there. If they could get to the house, if they could stay _alive_ , Keith would do whatever he needed to do keep them that way.

They made it to the house’s porch. Lance jumped off the saddle, keeping Artax’s rein in his hands as he guided her up the concrete steps. Keith guarded them from behind, keeping his sword up and swiping down any loose walkers. The crowd was inching closer and closer, the growling and moaning unbearably loud now, so loud it was hard to concentrate.

“Lance!” Keith shouted, turning to glance up at them.

Artax was standing right beside him, and she was making too much noise, hooves clanking against the porch. Lance was at the door, one hand on the door handle, shoulder pushing against it.

“I can’t get it open!” he screamed, close to hysterics.

Keith felt a hand on his chest, clawing at his shirt. He swiped his sword up, cutting off the head of a walker. He kicked the body away, back into the crowd and they stumbled back a few feet.

He turned and dashed up the steps, grabbing Lance by the back of his shirt and pulling him out of the way. He pushed back far enough to pull his leg up and kick at the door, and he put everything he had left into it and—

His foot went through the wood and splintered it. Lance shoved forward, and together, they pushed it in.

“Get Artax inside!” he shouted, turning back to the edge of the porch and kicking back the first few walkers that got up the first few stairs.

Lance tugged Artax inside, shouting, “Keith! Get your ass in here!”

He turned and raced inside. The door was splintered, but it had been blocked by a piece of furniture, so when Keith was inside, they shoved the heavy dresser back against it just as several pairs of hands snuck through the gap, clawing at the air.

It seemed to hold. Keith and Lance stepped back from it carefully, slowly.

“Are you alright?” Keith panted, out of breath, relieved that they were even alive.

Lance seemed to feel the same way. His blue eyes were wide, and he looked shaken up. It had been a close call, and it had also been a while since their last close call. Keith wondered if they would ever get used to almost dying at the hands of dead bodies.

“I’m okay,” he replied quietly, then he shifted his eyes to Artax.

They both moved over to her, checking for bites and scratches, but she was fine. Keith’s world tilted right side up again. Artax and Lance—they were all he had anymore.

And he had almost lost them today.

Somehow, between Artax and Lance’s heavy breathing, the groaning from the walkers at the door, and his own heartrate, Keith heard the creak of a floorboard from somewhere deeper in the house.

He froze immediately, glancing to Lance. He must not have heard it; he still had his face buried into Artax’s shoulder.

Keith gripped his sword and pulled it from the sheath on his back. He crept through the empty foyer and—

Another floorboard creaked.

He spun toward the sound, looking through the doorway into the empty, dark room attached off the hallway. There wasn’t anything in there, so where had the noise come from?

There were three more attached doorways on the foyer. Two at the very end and another on Keith’s other side. It looked like it led into a kitchen and living room, but the windows had all been boarded up because it was dim and hardly any sunlight cast into the room.

Lance’s voice was quiet when he said his name, and Keith turned around, but as he did, he caught a flash of gray in his peripheral, and then, something hit his head. He stumbled, and his vision went black right as he saw Lance’s eyes widen in horror as he looked at him.

He had blacked out by the time his body hit the floor.

;;

While Keith had been alone, nothing had really changed for him. Sure, the walkers and the “new world” were a change from how his life had been before, but as far as everything else, it had pretty much been the same.

He and his brother, Shiro, had essentially been on his own since his mother left when he was eight. He could barely remember her now; usually it was just flashes of her white hair, the gentle way she used to smile at Keith, a clip of her voice singing him to sleep if he was lucky.

His dad fell to pieces after Mom left, then, it only got worse when Shiro left too. He could still remember the day Shiro left the ranch for the last time to catch his bus to Atlanta, where he would start his military training. It had been a brisk day for Texas, the edges of winter just barely sneaking in on them.

“Take care of yourself,” Shiro had told him, more serious than he normally was. “You can call me. I’ll come if you need me.”

Keith was fourteen when he left. Their dad had already gone off the deep end, and Shiro left him behind with a few horses and a drunkard who had anger problems.

After Shiro, Keith tried to stick to his plans. Make it through high school. Join the Air Force. Become a pilot. Get the hell away from his dad and all his problems.

Nothing had worked. Keith was expelled from high school his junior year after he got into a fight with the football quarterback. It hadn’t been his first fight, but it had been the worst one. The other boy had needed reconstructive surgery for his nose and jaw by the time someone had hauled Keith off of him. No one seemed to care that he had been yelling the word “faggot” at Keith for _weeks_. No, nobody had ever cared.

He didn’t go back to high school, and his dad didn’t care either. Instead, he started working the ranch and breeding horses. They pulled in a decent living, just enough for his dad to waste everything away at the bar every night.

Keith never called Shiro.

He heard from his older brother from time to time. Every time he called, Shiro asked about school, asked about how he was doing, asked about their dad. And every time, Keith nodded even though Shiro couldn’t see him and lied, told him everything was fine.

Keith did his best. He worked with the horses, sold a few when he managed, found work when he could. He did a few rodeos and won some money that way, but he hated the thought of spending the rest of his life doing it. His only friend was his own horse, Artax, but he never really felt as bad about his life when he was riding her through the ranch. She was fast, excited, wild, just like him. At times, Keith thought that she was the only thing that understood him.

When the end of the world began, Keith hardly noticed. They didn’t have cable at their house, and they didn’t have internet. The only time that Keith ever really listened or watched the news was when he went into the town that was a few miles south of the ranch, and that was only a couple of times a week.

Then the big cities fell. Los Angeles, Miami, New York were all swarmed with people who had turned. Death tolls rose to the hundred-thousands, and they just kept climbing. The CDC was telling people to barricade themselves in their houses and to avoid contact with people. The government was trying to evacuate the Northern states and move people to Canada. The last that Keith had heard, which had been from an old radio that he’d stolen from the General Store when people started leaving town, was that everyone should head for Canada.

D.C. fell not long after. Power went out everyone. Communications went down. The government had made it clear that they wanted people to head to Canada, but Keith wondered how people thought that it couldn’t be as bad there too.

Keith never heard from Shiro. The last that he had, when the first weird news stories had started, Shiro was close to D.C. in an apartment about a hundred miles north of the city. He had been assigned on protection detail for something big, but he had never told Keith any of the details. It left Keith wondering if Shiro had been working with the outbreak, trying to get a cure for it or figure out how to save people from it.

Shiro was probably dead. Keith had almost lost hope, but there was something about the end of the world that made his father get his shit together. Oddly enough, after everything went down, after people turned on people and there were dead bodies up and walking, Keith’s dad was the best dad he had been in a long time. He was talking again. He planned again. When he ran out of alcohol, he didn’t go looking for more. He prepped the ranch for everything they could think of; they reinforced the fences, stocked up on food and supplies, talked about going north to find Shiro, and just _lived_ together.

The real end of the world happened about two months into the apocalypse.

Keith had been on Artax most of the morning, riding her around the perimeter and fixing broken spots in the fence when he found them. It had happened suddenly. One minute, the entire field was clear, nothing in site, and then the next, it was flooded with bodies and moans and groans and hands that were reaching for anything _alive_ —

Keith and Artax had raced back up to the barn, but it was no better there. They fought through a small horde of them with the sword Keith had found in an abandoned car early on, but they had found Keith’s dad resting inside the barn, half his shoulder torn away by a nasty bite.

It was the first time Keith had cried in years. His father’s apologies and instructions to go north and find Shiro were almost drowned out by the bodies outside the barn door. His father had managed to gather supplies for him, a bedroll, some food and water, a few more weapons, that he placed on Artax. He’d taken his black Stetson off his head and reached up to place it on Keith’s, smiling lightly. Then, he’d turned away and thrown both barn doors open, and Keith watched his dad drown in the walkers while Artax carried him away.

His days were empty. Keith stopped when Artax stopped. He ate when she ate, drank when she drank. For the first few days, he didn’t say anything. They dodged walkers as they ran from everything and nothing. They avoided living people when they could.

Keith killed a person, then someone else, then another.

By the time he came back to himself and headed north to look for Shiro, he was more adept to dealing with the world. He understood how it worked. Walkers were dangerous. People were more dangerous. Staying alone was staying alive. Don’t get your hopes up. Don’t hope for anything. Just stay alive.

They headed toward D.C. Keith and Artax learned pretty quickly to avoid the cities and bigger highways when they could. Artax was fast, excited at the prospect of riding so much. She made everything else bearable.

Unsurprisingly, the apartment where Shiro had last said he was had been burned to the ground. There were only burned bodies and remains left. Keith hadn’t known what to expect, but he never thought he would find Shiro alive anyway. He had just sat atop Artax and stared at the ruined building for as long as the universe allowed. When the bodies had started stumbling toward them, he had jerked on Artax’s reins and led them away.

Days later, he had been making his way down a major highway until he could pick his way into the suburbs of D.C. when he and Artax had been startled by the loud creak of a car door. He and Artax had both turned, focusing on the sound, and Keith had been met with one of the most beautiful boys he’d ever seen.

Despite being pretty and easy to look at, Lance was hard to get along with. The first day, he’d been so annoying and rude that Keith had assumed he was just a jackass. Sure, it did nothing to temper how gorgeous he was, but it was enough to make Keith sputter with rage. The only consolation had been how much Artax had seemed to like him. She had always been a good judge of character, so it made Keith wonder if he was really a jackass or not.

Keith knew for sure when Lance snuck out of the cabin the next morning. The other boy was so loud that Keith hardly slept at all when Lance was on watch, but when he’d started to sneak out, he said goodbye to Artax and blocked the door back so they would be safe.

He honestly hadn’t meant to track him down. He and Artax had left a couple of hours after Lance, just to give him enough time to make some ground on them in whatever direction he had decided on. Keith guessed he would head west since there was nothing left in the south, but it had been an honest mistake, a lucky miracle when he’d found Lance on the road again.

After, they’d stayed together. Keith was glad. He had been completely honest when he had told Lance that he was tired of being alone. And Lance—Keith could tell that Lance needed someone. When he had found Lance again, he promised himself that he would try his hardest to be whatever Lance needed. He _had_ to make it work. He didn’t even really know why, but he knew that it was something he had to do. In the two days that they had known each other, Lance had somehow become his family, and Keith would die before he lost another one.

;;

He could hear Lance’s voice before he could see anything. He was saying his name, and it made Keith squint and blink his eyes open slowly.

Even though the light was dim, it still hurt his head. There was a throbbing pain right behind his eyes, and when he looked up, he could see Lance hovering above him, face twisted with worry, voice mirroring it as he said, “Keith? Keith, wake up.”

Lance’s face softened with relief, and one of his hands was sitting on Keith’s chest. It was warm. He said, “Oh thank god, Keith.”

“Happened?” he grunted, trying to get the room to stop spinning.

“My fault,” another voice said, and despite his headache, he jerked up, hand automatically reaching behind him to grab his sword.

Lance grabbed his wrist and stopped him. His fingers were warm on Keith’s skin. His other hand fisted Keith’s shirt, and he said, “Hey, no, stop. We’re fine. We’re fine.”

Keith blinked, almost letting a groan slip through his lips. Lance helped him sit up the rest of the way, and Keith pressed a hand against his forehead for a few seconds before forcing himself to look around the room.

They were in some sort of living room, Keith thought. The furniture was almost ruined, covered in blood in spots, and the boards that had been used to cover the windows were falling. It looked like this house had been used for a while after the apocalypse, but it must not have lasted long for whoever was here before.

“Artax?” Keith asked. His voice was rough.

“Right behind you,” Lance said just as she nudged Keith’s neck with her nose. He reached back blindly to set his hand on her, murmuring that he was okay.

“You okay?” he asked Lance next.

The other boy nodded back at him. His eyes were wide, and he was studying Keith closely. He didn’t seem alarmed or afraid, so Keith thought that was a good sign.

Lance said, “I’m okay. Pidge didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

Keith finally shifted his gaze to the new voice. Honestly, the person was smaller than he had thought. Even though she was sitting on the floor beside Lance, Keith could tell that she was a lot shorter and probably a lot younger than them. Her hair was short, sticking out in odd clumps off her head. There was a thin layer of dirt on her face, and a pair of too big, wire framed glasses were sitting low on her nose.

“I’m Pidge,” she said. “Sorry I hit you.”

He narrowed his eyes, but he really couldn’t blame her. He would have done the same thing if he’d found her first.

“It’s alright,” Lance said cheerfully when Keith didn’t answer. “Keith has a hard head so he’ll heal up in no time.”

Keith looked over to Lance, “How do you know she’s not crazy?”

Lance stared at him, “It was a misunderstanding, Keith. She hit you; I almost shot her. I talked to her while we waited on you to wake up. She gave us food and water. _And_ she has some Advil if your head is hurting.”

It made Keith feel a little better that Lance had threatened to shoot her. It was just so hard to tell how people would be anymore, or if there were any good people left. Objectively, Keith was aware that he had given Lance a chance without knowing anything about him but—this was different. Lance was his family now. They couldn’t just trust anyone they came across.

Still. If Pidge, whoever she was, had been wanting to kill them, it would have been best to do it when Keith had been knocked out.

Now, she held her hand out, presenting a bottle of Advil to him.

Keith stared at it for so long that Lance sighed dramatically and took it from Pidge. He dumped three tablets out into his hand before pressing them into Keith’s palm and shoving some water at him too.

“Thanks,” he murmured, swallowing them quickly. Artax knickered behind him silently, and Keith felt her press her nose against his neck. He guessed that she had been worried about him.

Keith drank the rest of the water, and they waited. In the silence that followed, Keith could still hear the crowd of bodies outside. It wasn’t as prominent here, but the faint echoes of the growls and moans and the unnerving thuds against the walls were still audible.

“They should wander off in a few hours if we stay quiet,” Pidge broke the silence between them, and Keith stiffened at her voice.

“Could you leave us alone for a few minutes?” Lance asked suddenly. “I need to talk to Keith.”

Pidge nodded quickly. She stood, and her height made Keith wonder exactly how old she was. She said, “I’ll go upstairs for a while. There’s more water if you need it.”

Lance thanked her, and she slowly walked out of the room. Keith’s eyes followed her out into the hallway where she disappeared into the dark. He heard the small _creaks_ of the stairs when she started up them.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when Lance cuffed him on the back of the head. It made his headache sting a little more, but when he looked over to Lance, he was already frowning.

“What?” he grumbled.

“Stop being a dick,” Lance said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“We don’t even know her.”

Lance rolled his eyes, “You didn’t know me.”

“You’re different.”

“Yeah, _now_. I get that you want to be careful, but I’m not laying my gun down either. Sure, she could be planning on killing us in our sleep or feeding us to walkers, but we don’t know that. She gave us food, water, and medicine. She had a gun when she came downstairs, so she could have shot both of us, but she didn’t,” Lance paused for a few seconds and lowered his voice. “I think we should help her.”

“ _What?_ ”

Lance rolled his eyes again, probably at Keith’s tone of voice, but _come on._ Lance had to know how crazy he sounded right now. They couldn’t just—they didn’t even _know_ her. Why would they help her? And what would they even help her with?

“I’m serious, Keith,” he said. While he spoke, Artax laid down behind them, nudging their backs. It made Keith realize how close he was sitting to Lance. They were barely a foot apart. Lance continued, “When you were passed out, she told me that she’s looking for her brother. He’s in D.C., and we’re going there anyway.”

“How does she know he’s alive?” Keith asked because _come on_ , who even had family left in the world anymore?

“Keith, seriously,” Lance said, annoyed. Keith guessed that Lance had already made up his mind about helping her. “We’re going to D.C. anyway, and we can help her get there.”

He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. His head was still aching. “Why should we?”

Lance finally looked away from him. He flattened his palm over Artax’s leg and smoothed her coat as he murmured, “She reminds me of my sisters. If someone found them, I hoped they would help.”

Keith heaved a big sigh. He wasn’t any good at this. He had a hard-enough time connecting with Lance in the first place, and even then, they weren’t in a place where they had long talks about their families and their past. Sure, Keith knew enough about Lance to know that his entire family was most likely dead, but hearing Lance talk about them like this was enough to set Keith on edge.

He relented, “Okay. She just needs us to help her get to D.C.?”

“And help her look for her brother.”

“We could get killed doing that.”

Lance rolled his eyes, “We could get killed the next time we go outside.”

Keith sighed again, reaching up to thread a hand through his hair. Absently, he wondered what happened to his hat. “Okay, okay. So we just drop everything and go look for her brother with her?”

“Honestly, Keith, what do we have to drop?” Lance sounded annoyed again, like it was actually an effort to carry on this conversation. “We don’t have anything.”

“What about Hunk?”

Lance hesitated at that, and Keith regretted bringing it up.

It was a long few seconds before Lance said anything else, and when he did reply, his voice was firm and allowed no room to argue. “We’re going to D.C. first anyway, so we should help Pidge.”

Keith nodded and turned to look at him. Lance was still leaning back against Artax, smoothing his hand over her leg. He wasn’t looking at Keith, but his jaw was clenched, and his shoulders were stiff.

“Okay,” Keith agreed. “We go to D.C. first and help Pidge find her brother.”

“Then Hunk.”

He nodded, “Then Hunk.”

There was a heavy pause between them then. It was familiar to Keith now; it was a silence that happened when they were on the same page, when they knew they were about to do something dangerous, something that could get them killed. D.C. would be more dangerous than anything that they had done so far.

But they didn’t have another option. They didn’t have enough supplies to continue out West, and everything in the suburbs had been picked clean by other people. They would have to find more food and water in the city before they would be able to leave. Besides, they were too close now anyway, and if they were going to help Pidge, they would have to go straight into D.C.

Keith leaned back against Artax, resting against her shoulder. His head was still aching, but the medicine was helping a little bit. In the silence, Keith could still hear the walkers outside. It made him feel caged in and surrounded, like there were no other options.

“Is your head still hurting?” Lance’s voice was softer then, more tempered to the air between them.

Keith mirrored his tone, something in him desperate to keep the moment between them. He murmured, “It’s getting better. The medicine helped.”

“We should go upstairs and find Pidge,” Lance said a few minutes later.

Keith nodded and pushed off Artax, struggling and stumbling to his feet. Honestly, he was exhausted. His boots felt too heavy, and his limbs felt sluggish.

When he was upright, Lance turned to him and sat his hat on top of his head. He had a small smirk on his face, and his voice titled upward when he said, “Can’t be a cowboy without your hat, can you?”

Keith scoffed and followed after him when he started for the stairs. He refused to acknowledge the _slight_ blush on his cheeks. It was probably because of his headache anyway.

They left Artax in the living room and made their way through the house. A few floorboards creaked as they inched through the dark hallway and to the stairs. Blood covered the walls, and Keith was just starting to notice how the whole house smelled like death. He wondered what had happened here; then, he decided he was better off not knowing.

When they got to the top of the stairs, Lance softly called out to Pidge.

“Here,” she replied, voice echoing from a doorway to the right.

Keith followed Lance into the room. It was lighter than the other. The boards on the window had been taken off, and the front window was propped open with a book. There was a semi-automatic rifle resting against the window frame, and the room was also littered with a few cans of food and some small supplies, including a sleeping bag, a solar powered lantern, a few books, and other miscellaneous objects.

Pidge was sitting in a chair in front of the open window. She turned to look at them and met Keith’s gaze. Her eyes were narrowed, but she must have seen realized that they weren’t planning on hurting her because she nodded to him.

She jerked her head toward the window, “They should clear out in a few hours. Definitely by tomorrow.”

Keith looked past her to see an enormous crowd of walkers surrounding them. It made his throat tighten and his lungs seize up, but when he looked closely, walkers at the back of the crowd were already starting to wander away. Pidge was probably right. If they could hold out here until the crowd moved on, they could get to D.C.

“We’re going to help you find your brother,” Lance said suddenly, breaking the tense silence.

She spun around to face them, eyes wide, “You are? Why?”

Keith glanced at Lance before shrugging, “We don’t have anything else to do.”

“Thank you,” she blurted, voice heavy with gratitude and relief. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank us yet,” Lance said, stepping farther into the room to lean against the wall. “We might not be able to find him.”

“But you’re still going to help me,” she said, meeting Keith’s gaze again. “That’s… it’s something.”

Keith nodded and broke the eye contact to stare out at the sea of walkers in front of them. He wondered if the universe was trying to send them a message, if this was some kind of ominous foreshadowing for what was waiting for them in D.C.

Instead of considering it, Keith said, “It’s something.”

**Author's Note:**

> [maireep](http://www.maireep.tumblr.com)   
>  [somethingmorecreative1](http://www.somethingmorecreative1.tumblr.com)


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